PLAYiNG GAMES VS MAKiNG THEM ( + SOME ADViCE )
A few years back while playing Final Fantasy 7 I realized that I have never touched any console games. About a year ago I decided to retire my 13 year old PC and buy a new one, which would finally allow me to play many modern games I had some interest in. Anyway, since about 2021 I have played close to 150-200 games. Note that I only finished the ones I liked or could bear somewhat, but even then, it's still a lot. The results are in...
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Visual Novels bored me, but they were perfect for learning Japanese. I don't see any point in them beyond that. If you want to check out the ones I liked, visit the My Favorite Games page.
- Retro console games (NES, SNES, Genesis, etc) were not my thing at all. I enjoyed Abadox, but I can't think of anything else. Zelda was OK I guess? I don't care for these at all and wonder if I would have been into them if I was born in the 70s or 80s. Can't say for sure...
- Modern games are, well, modern games. I would have probably enjoyed some of these more if I played them earlier, but by this point I find "realistic" graphics really odd and boring to look at. But I enjoyed them more than the retro ones.
- PSX / N64 era games were pretty nice, especially PSX ones. They even made it into my list of favorite titles!
- Indie games were a hit or miss. Some were so good, I added them to the list. Some I could barely play for more than 15 minutes.
I also did some catching up. Enjoyed Morrowind, fell asleep in Oblivion, hated Daggerfall and, so far, had no luck having fun in Skyrim. etc etc etc. I also tried to make friends (in Deep Rock Galactic, Killing Floor 2). It's actually very easy, but I didn't like losing control over my schedule and having to play more than I like. In the end, I quit both games (DRG was too addicting while no longer being fun as I played too much, KF2 is too boring).
Having played a ton of different games, and looking at some titles I checked out prior to this epic game rush, I must admit, making games (or anything of your own) is better. You forge memories, mementos of sorts, you have more fun by default (experimenting with ideas / mechanics you like VS playing a game you have little control over). You can develop deep imaginary worlds, stories, or just mess around and flood random sites with your nonsense. I wish that instead of slogging through Oblivion (I had to pick up the bottle to do so - that game was too disappointing to be played sober!) I learned 3D modelling or how to make music properly, for example. Hell man.
I used to be dissatisfied with my reliance on Construct Classic, wishing instead to use something more complex like Gamemaker. This plagued me for years. In retrospect, I now realize that I had been a fool. The fun that I get from tinkering with the program and manifesting new ways of implementing things through my limited knowledge is what it's all about. It's real fun. I actually did make progress with gamemaker this year, all it took was for a friend to tell me that F1 lets me access a manual, plus for LLMs to help me put together code quickly (Perplexity gave a delta time implementation that worked, allowing for different frame rates!). But then I got derailed a bit (recovered old files and updated most of my games) and so I haven't really worked on anything in gamemaker since then. I do have some ideas for construct games though. Not sure if I'll finish them though. Well, that's about it.
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